Thursday, 4 October 2012

I had an interesting discussion online recently with Mike Jackson, Lucy Telford and Tim Parkin. Mike posed the question "why do I think of myself as a landscape photographer?". Mike expressed the opinion that the most successful photographers in landscape like Michael Kenna have their own unique style and are simply thought of as "photographers" rather than "landscape photographers". Tim's argument was that landscape is big enough to embrace everyone from the most creative to the most conventional. At the time I thought this has considerable weight, but having had some time to ruminate over it, I'm no longer so sure and this is because of how genres work in practice. I shall explain...

In case you haven't noticed landscape is what I do, it's is my creative impetus, subject and something I have a very strong personal relationship with. But does that qualify me as a landscape photographer? I have also dabbled in street / social documentary, so obviously I already straddle a number of genres, but realistically the last 3-4 years have been purely landscape. There's still a nagging doubt though that I'm doing something which is mine alone, not really conforming to any particular genre anymore.

Photographers rarely start out as identifying themselves with a particular genre, they probably don't even think of themselves as photographers in the early days. Most just think of themselves as people using cameras. For the vast majority this is enough, they don't progress any further. But it does seem that most of us who take photography seriously end up saying "this is me, this is what I want to do" at some stage in our photographic progression.

So why do we sign up to genres? Why do we choose to associate ourselves with particular genres, be they landscape, street, social documentary, portraiture or whatever? Obviously starting out as a photographer is a difficult place to be, there's a whole world of possibilities to choose from, subjects to choose and styles to be chosen. It's much more comfortable to focus our energies in one particular direction, or subject, once we've found what interests us the job becomes that much easier. The creative choices have narrowed and a great deal of creative energy is usually stimulated by having creative focus.

Often within each genre we find there is a community of like minded individuals who are happy to share their knowledge insights and passions. Choosing a genre is a good place to be, supportive, sometimes challenging and inspirational. We find other photographers doing things we aspire to, we learn a great deal. As we progress further, deeper into our chosen area we may even begin to find something more personal to express, our own angle, our own take on that genre.

So what can possibly go wrong? Well as any truly creative, original visual artist will tell you (or should tell you!) the real value in art is having ideas of your own. For the very same reasons as we sign up to a genre - the comfort of finding something we associate with, the narrowing of creative focus and the choice of a subject area - we are discarding much of our artistic potential.

Most genuinely imaginative artists I talk to exist in very much the same state as the beginner, the constant doubt, self criticism, and wondering how to express themselves in a way that is both personally satisfying and reaches out to a potential audience. They don't have a ready made yardstick to measure themselves against, it is about their personal motivation and satisfaction. The act of questioning is perhaps the most important part of that journey, it's why they push boundaries and create unique work.

Genre photographers of all sorts, have to a large extent bought into a way of seeing and expressing, they find unwritten rules and codifications about how they should fit in, conform and what, why and how we take what we have chosen. This isn't to say there isn't potential for those working within genres to produce original, striking and creative work, but it is partly why the vast majority will always be derivative, sterile and lacking in creative weight.

The real problem in associating ourselves with a genre is that the intellectual heavy lifting has been done for us. By buying into a way seeing we are buying into a way of thinking. It's as if we don't have to think very deeply anymore, we have given up part of the struggle, and yet struggle and internal conflict are key to the creative process. Unless we are willing to cross boundaries, stretch possibilities and be true to ourselves then our work will inevitably suffer.

I have often said and heard it said by people I admire that much of the creative possibilities lie in the "gaps between", exploring crossovers, combinations and ideas that others haven't yet found. I'm not really sure these days if I actually think like that as part of my creative process, but I will admit it has some weight in abstract intellectual terms. This is because even that way of thinking doesn't represent the motivations which drive me, the concepts that I develop are becoming far more personal and specific. Genres don't matter anymore.

Perhaps being a genre photographer should only be a stage we go through until we find ways of expressing ourselves, not others' perspectives? Could it be that after dabbling in genres the only true route to creativity is to return ourselves to the state of the beginner, albeit with a considerably high technical and creative skill set? To be able to see beyond the genre, to create work which is honest to our own imagination probably means we won't end up working within a genre anymore. We will become just photographers again.

Monday, 10 September 2012

"A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity. When for a few seconds the silence drowns out the noise, and I can feel rather than think. And things feel so sharp and the world seems so fresh. It's as though it had all just come into existence. I can never make these moments last, I cling to them, but like everything they fade. I've lived my life on these moments, they pull me back to the present and I realise that everything is exactly the way it's meant to be." Christopher Isherwood.

Thursday, 30 August 2012

I've had another response from TP
http://www.timparkin.co.uk/2012/08/damn-and-counterblast/
so here goes!

This be my final word on the subject of Velvia, and why I shan't mourn it's demise, or else I'm going to end up straying into misrepresentative circles created by Tim Parkin who evidently has some difficulty thinking outside of the technical world where he is most comfortable. (that's sarcasm btw, not the truth!)

Sorry Tim, but I just don't recognise much of what you say about my post here, I suspect you're misrepresenting what I said. And you accuse me of having hidden agendas! :-)

I was going to leave it at the last post, feeling my point well enough made originally. But I can't sit silently by without at least pointing out a few fundamental misunderstandings.

1. It seems the majority of your argument is based around some sort of film/digital divide. That's not something I recognise personally, my point was around creativity. Hit me with as many digital bricks as you like, it's not countering what I said.

2. There's plenty of wonderful landscape photography that has no need of expressing ideas in words, it is quite possible to see this in the gestural trees of Dav Thomas as a single example I'm sure few will disagree with. Or the surreally beautiful strangely compelling compositions of Mike Jackson's Poppit Sands. That doesn't mean they aren't expressing ideas (if only as a way of seeing) however much they may protest! The truth is that visual mediums can and always have expressed ideas, well at least if the artist/ photographer has one to express. I have never said that this is a problem unique to LF, that assumption is just silly. However, I think it does suffer, which given the claims of its users' superiority strikes me as somewhat sad. I didn't use the phrase representational in my original post, I used the word illustrative, which I hoped the average intelligent reader would realise implied an emptiness of approach. I like representational, it implies an artistic to and fro between viewer and photographer through the medium of imagery. Sadly I don't see much of it about. LF Velvia users are no more immune to this than anyone. So back to my original point which is lets hope moving on from Velvia helps move things along creatively as well. You see not a veiled attack, but a hope for the future.

3. I'm quite happy to accept your point about the democratisation of the acme, if that's what you believe, but again you have introduced a spurious financial argument, when I was discussing creativity.

4. My original piece suggested that LF Velvia wasn't a format suitable for everyone. It's perhaps best at illustrating the real world, but some us aren't chasing that as a goal in our expression. In which case it's superiority is moot.

5. As for the tools mitigating approach, many film users say it helps them slow down their approach. Whether that's because they are terrified of exposing a frame of the fast dwindling stock of Velvia or not! I have long suspected that this may be as much about maturity of approach as the tools, that as one migrates up the ladder of tools one may hope the maturity grows too! I dunno I've happily spent a couple of hours refining a single composition with a DSLR in the past. I'm not really working with that sort of methodology at present though, so again, it's not for all.

6. Finally! You're entirely correct that almost all of my arguments could be equally applied to any other format of photography. If you claim to be the best, that should at least be a slight worry!

I'm not saying any of this to specifically accuse LF Velvia users of inferiority, I don't believe that for a moment (tools do not maketh a man!) but if I can equally level the accusations across the board, then please make it shake up your games, question your comfortable assertions and stop bloody whinging!
;-))

Below is my response to Tim Parkin's comments
made on my blog post Why I won't mourn the demise of Velvia: a counterblast.
For those of you who aren't aware, I count Tim as a good friend, we have known
each other for many, many years both online and in person. And we have
frequently argued long into the night, but we do share an abiding passion for
landscape and actually agree on far more than we disagree. As if I now need to
point this out, this was not a personal attack on Tim, but an opportunity to
give landscape photography an occasional and much needed proverbial kick up the
arse.

Tim: Blastproofing

Rob Hudson has recently posted a ‘counterblast’ to the demise of large format velvia film.
In the post he declares that the death of Velvia is actually a boon to
landscape photography. And whilst I respect his write not to mourn such a niche
product, I thought I’d write a short rebuttal covering a few statements from
the article.

“what it looks like should
probably be driven by what you are trying to say, rather than because you
happen to like strong colours or prefer a particular palette”

Hmm, agree… but this predicates on a
dichotomy between saturation/colour and communication/art – surprisingly I
think you can have one and other at the same time.

Rob: Of course you can, and no doubt should,
I have done so myself. It is a pity that so few seem to realise its even
a possibility.

“Until very recently the chosen
format for virtually all colour landscape photographers of any degree of
seriousness has been a large format camera very probably loaded with Velvia.”

Rob: Well I was commenting predominantly on
British landscape photography which should remove a fair few of those, but
whatever, I'm pretty sure that was Velvia in Charlie's Hasselblad. It does
rather make me question if the UK isn't a bit backward in these things?

“This hegemony has in turn bred
an orthodoxy of approach.”

Tim: Hegemony is strong word – implying the
threat of of some sort and the imposition of a universal world view. Large
format may be my particular pleasure but considering I could only find a
hundred or so large format landscape photographers online compared with, lets
say a few more digital or MF/35mm film users, it’s difficult to say it has been
enforced in any way.

Of course in every genre of photography and
in every type of equipment or medium there will be good and bad. From wet plate
to iphone there are creative genii and derivative idiots. And in large format
landscape photography there is sometimes a difficulty getting past the
representational and to experiment. However that is why all the large format
photographers I know use big and small cameras, film and digital to
‘experiment’ with.

Rob: Of course if you'd read down a little
further you will have noticed that I said "I'm not saying this as some
sort of paranoid, conspiracy theory, I'm sure nobody set out to create
such an environment, but does it exist as much by default, because of the
structural investment in equipment and film itself?" See another
reply below for what I mean by "structural investment"
.

“For the majority (but thankfully
not exclusively) of these leaders in our community the illustrative is still
their primary aim.”

Tim: – being representational
doesn’t correlate with being merely illustrative. Romantic does not mean
lacking in a meaning or metaphor. etc.

Rob: Again - why is metaphor and meaning such a rarity? And
when expressed often trivially and shallowly? I'm not waving a finger
specifically at LF here, I know it's widespread throughout photography and the
art world, but does the self perception of the format as perfecting
representation photography not mean there is added entrenchment?

“When in fact alternative
approaches to the art exist, but as they don’t fit in with the orthodox view,
they are dismissed as inferior.”

Tim: Oooh! You’d better back this one up
Rob!!

Rob: Again I'm not saying this as if its a
conspiracy, simply that the constant reiteration of superiority will have the
impact of dismissal of other formats and approaches.

“but does it exist as much by
default, because of the structural investment in equipment and film itself?”

Tim: … Me and Dav Thomas specced out a
full large format system for under 1,000 pound including tripod and bag and two
excellent L class lenses. I’d be interested in a digital set up that had just
one L class lens that would cost the same. And the cost of film over a year
would probably add up to the upgrade cost of most digital photographers
(£600-1000 a year?).

I know of quite a few photographers who have
recently moved from Canon to digital, selling all of their cameras and lenses
(and a few who then went back again!). In comparison with that sort of burn
rate large format – amortised – is not significantly costly

Rob: By "structural investment" I
wasn't talking about money, but the edifice (some of which is economic) around
LF in terms of sales, teaching, writing, promotion, books. It becomes a self
fulfilling fantasy that is difficult to step away from without alienating fans,
galleries, magazines etc.

“One thing is certain, as the
price of colour film is on a seemingly never ending upward spiral, a more
haphazard, playful, exploratory approach becomes increasingly inconceivable
amongst LF film users.”

Tim: is the one area where most
people commenting on large format seem to get wrong. Just because you use large
format doesn’t preclude the use of other cameras. In fact I would go as far to
say that large format camera users tend to own and use a larger variety of
cameras in different ways. They almost always own smaller compacts to
‘experiment’ with as well (sometimes transposing their experiments onto LF –
sometimes not)

Yes film costs can be expensive but they can
compare with the amount spent on digital camera upgrades, lens collections,
etc. LF photographers don’t tend to replace lenses as nearly all of them out
resolve the film they use.

A set of four lenses (a typical collection)
can be bought for about £200-300 each – making a full collection of lenses add
up to less than half the price of a 24mm Canon tilt shift.

And the cost of colour film is a minimal
expense with large format photography – the biggest expense is time for each
exposure. And large format itself is not a limitation on experimentation – take
a look at the work of Brett Weston for example or Frank Gohlke (colour too!).

In summary I think Rob is right – Fuji Velvia
exerts a magical influence on people and makes the mere representation of the
world enough for many. And large format ends up attractive to magic bullet
chasers – however in my experience most of the people who are just after
resolution will have migrated back to digital by now – hence curing themselves
of the Velvia virus.

However, Rob is also wrong –
illustrative/artistic is not an either or. Large format doesn’t preclude
experimentation – and large format cameras don’t preclude other cameras.

Fine art photography has a certain level of distaste
for the vernacular and also has a soft spot for the experimental and
‘alternative’. Sometimes this produces interesting work but on occasion it
ignores work that doesn’t fit with preconception. Like all walks of life,
the good and the bad live along side each other in various proportions,
but no media or material dictates the message or lack of it.

I know Rob was being a little ‘Devil’s
advocate’ so I know he won’t mind the strong response

Rob: I don't mind the response at all! :-) As
I said above, I wasn't talking about financial investment, so I'll happily
accept your premise that the costs may be lower. However, the fantasy that upgrading
will improve your photography is a common fallacy right across the photographic
spectrum, indeed it seems to have taken on epidemic proportions. It is certainly another way
of avoiding confronting the gaping hole in most people's photography, which is
ideas, and concentrating on the technical and the artistic superficialities.
I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me on that, but from a personal
perspective I don't need to be in the toyshop before I play.

There really needs to be a significant shift towards ideas and creativity
in most photographer's time and energy. Having said that, if LF promotes itself
as "the ultimate upgrade" then there is the risk that it will attract
just these type of people disproportionately. Technical skill and creativity
should not be confused, they are separate entities that with luck may combine
successfully. The trick is finding the balance. Landscape photography in that context is unbalanced!

Monday, 27 August 2012

The news of the demise of Fuji Velvia
as a large format film has been greeted with dismay it seems across the
photographic spectrum, but more so than anywhere in my own genre of landscape photography.
Here it is widely regarded as the film of choice for its extra saturation, it's
contrast range and it's ability to reproduce deep, yet believably rendered
colours. Yet I shan't mourn it's demise. Not because I don't believe that it
can produce beautiful results that are still way beyond anything achievable in
digital, and certainly not because I have anything against film itself. My
reasons are more complex.

Perhaps I should, at his point, admit
that in my landscape photography I am primarily a digital and a black and white
photographer. 'So why would I care?' I can here you chorus through the ether!
Well the fact that my phone suggests 'velociraptor'
when I type Velvia may just be an ironic software glitch born out of a limited
vocabulary, or as I prefer to believe it does illustrate a sort of dinosaurism
in landscape photography. Now I don't want to deny anyone their pleasure if
this is your sort of thing, but I do believe the demise of Velvia might serve
to freshen things up a bit, challenge convention and force a bit of a rethink
amongst many of its users.

The use of LF Velvia amongst
landscape photographers has become so all pervasive that apparently without
irony, lower saturation and lower contrast landscape photography has
become accepted as somehow more artistic. Well okay, but maybe we have a
difference of opinion about the definition of 'art' here? Don't
worry I'm not intending to travel that road, except to say that it is the human
element of artistic expression that interests me more than the illustrative,
what it looks like should probably be driven by what you are trying to say,
rather than because you happen to like strong colours or prefer a particular palette.

I am still madly passionate about the
landscape, as a place, as an attractive retreat and it's environmental
protection from the demands of big business and overbearing landlords. So you
know there's little I like more than being out there, and
failing that looking at what other photographers produce. Now while I'll
happily allow that there are as many diverse opinions and different stages of
artistic, photographic and even spiritual development out there, there is
however an awful lot of similarity in the work produced.

It seems landscape photography is
condemned to be primarily an illustrative genre. Now I will freely admit its a
stage in our progression we all have to go through, myself included. There's a great
excitement in simply finding a pleasing picture of what is before us, some may even start to
consider such things as composition, light and colour rendition. These are or
can be important elements, but in themselves they are just building blocks,
technical

considerations that go into the
making of art. The next step is to learn how to express ourselves with these
tools. We, as people, have far more potential, far more to express in our relationship
to the land as conscious, thinking beings rather than an empty all seeing eye.

Okay, you're saying, fair enough, but
what has all this got to do with large format colour film? Well if there's a
prevailing zeitgeist out there that spreads right from LF film to digital, then
those at the top of the landscape photography tree must take some
responsibility. Until very recently the chosen format for virtually all colour landscape
photographers of any degree of seriousness has been a large format camera very
probably loaded with Velvia. That is a massive investment in time, learning and
skill, and to some extent money. For the majority (but thankfully not
exclusively) of these leaders in our community the illustrative is still their
primary aim. There are good reasons for this, illustrative is
what sells, (to an extent, but the falling prices of both stock and gallery
images might have something to do with the market being saturated with these
style of images); illustrative is easy to communicate, it appeals to our
predominantly low brow popular photographic press;
illustrative is easy to teach, and many make a substantial part of their income
from teaching /speaking rather than doing.

This hegemony has in turn bred an
orthodoxy of approach. We look to our betters to learn from, in the early days
imitate them, and perhaps to explore the possibilities available. But the irony
is that a large format camera, filled with Velvia
(and all that investment that goes along with it) is really the pinnacle of
illustrative expression. One has to wonder if it serves any other purpose,
whether the tools come to predict the output? If the basis
of its appeal is the reality of its expression, then give me less reality! We
all do it, we find a way of doing things that we think is better and proclaim
it to the world, but fail to notice that it might only be a better way of doing
what we do, that others may find different
routes, have differing expressions and motivations. The overwhelming prevalence
of LF Velvia users in the positions of authority, in British landscape
photography especially, proclaims itself as just such an
acme, or highest point in achievement. When in fact alternative approaches to
the art exist, but as they don't fit in with the orthodox view, they are
dismissed as inferior. I'm not saying this as some sort of paranoid, conspiracy theory, I'm sure nobody set out to
create such an environment, but does it exist as much by default, because of
the structural investment in equipment and film itself? One thing is certain,
as the price of colour film is on a seemingly never
ending upward spiral, a more haphazard, playful, exploratory approach becomes
increasingly inconceivable amongst LF film users. Maybe just that approach is needed to find those ideas that will
fresh up the genre's thinking.

If you're one of the majority that
think the extent of landscape's remit is simply to find pleasing shapes and
nice colours, then you're probably going to disagree with me. I, on the other
hand, would contend that this is a blindly
technocratic, backwards and limiting approach, that has learned nothing from
art in the 20th century. This taught us that art is really to be found as much
in ideas, the inner expression must at least equal the outer. Now I'm not
claiming that we should throw away all convention, but at least find some
individuality of expression, some new ways of seeing pretty shapes and colours
that doesn't rely on a rigid simple formulae of foreground, middle ground and
sky. Landscape photography has long been stuck in a comparative rut, it is in
need of catching up with more modern ways of thinking. Perhaps the demise of Velvia will
spurn new ways of thinking, new ways of seeing? Perhaps, in the long term, the
demise of Velvia will be a good thing?

Friday, 24 August 2012

Photography has a strange effect on our perceptions. I came to landscape photography through a love of walking in the countryside, I loved the feeling of passing through a place - the feeling of timelessness that walking inspires. Yes I stopped and looked at the views as we all do, but hiking is different, the views are delightful, but they are only part of the context of a journey, especially in the poor light of memory. And yet, in my photography, even though I wanted to share the sights I found, they became a series of detached elements, lacking the interconnection of traveling, lacking if you will the context of the journey. At best they feel like vignettes.

In the landscape we are occupying the space between two worlds, our own inner landscape and the outer landscape that surrounds us. And it is this space between that I want to examine in my images. Susan Sontag wrote that a photograph "is not only an image ... an interpretation of the real, it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask". Suggesting to my mind (amongst many things) is that there is something beyond, there are possibilities beyond the simply literal.

It's one of the strange paradoxes of
landscape photography that although we see a picture of the landscape it's not
landscape as we experience it. As John Berger wrote "The violence is
expressed in that strangeness. It records an instant sight about which this
stranger has shouted: Look!" In landscape the camera can become "an
estranged god".

We don't sit still seeing
compositions all around, unless you're an experienced landscape photographer
anyway! We are alive to the senses of movement, the wind, the cold, the damp
and our eyes rarely sit still, our attention is flung from one thing to the
next almost imperceptibly. Add to that the mists of memory of the journey, the
pulling sensation of traveling forward, the almost meditative sense of
detachment - and you will begin to understand what I wanted to explore. As TS
Eliot said "Footfalls echo in the memory". It is the echoes that
excite me.

For some time now I'd been puzzling
in my mind over how to represent a journey in a photographic terms, not just through
snapshots of particular beauty spots or even the path itself, but the spirit of
the journey, the feeling of moving, of time passing as we travel through a
landscape. If you have seen my previous blog you will have seen some of my early attempts. In one of those strangely fortuitous coincidences that can at times
light the creative spark, I had also been considering a return to film from
digital work and was, at that time, thinking about what is special about film.

Of course I knew that film could
capture time and movement through a double exposure. But it had been twenty
years or more since I'd made use of film and being somewhat unsure of exactly
how I would realize the idea, I decided the cheapest route would be to
experiment digitally before returning to capture the desired effect on
negative, if and when I found something workable. So with notebook and camera
in hand I headed to the Wenallt, beech woods near my home, with the idea of
conducting a 'scientific' experiment. Noting the distance traveled between each
exposure and the number of exposures in each frame. I wanted to explore the
possibilities, to gain an understanding through practice of what is possible
visually and what fails.

My intentions started well. I
wandered the woods for half an hour trying to find a suitable subject and as I
was just starting to think this was an unpromising forest, I meandered off the
path and spied, far off in the distance, a singularly bent tree seemingly
framed by its more ordinary, straight cousins. I started slowly, just moving a
few inches, taking a frame and gradually widening the distance until I was
taking one frame for each of the longest strides I could manage. It was after
repeating this perhaps a dozen strides that I realized the notebook was
somewhat redundant, but more, that I had happened upon an idea.

Those photographs came together to
form 61 Light, 61 strides through the trees and the subsequent series of
shorter parts of that journey. In isolation they are not perhaps unique or
special, but together I hope they form an insight into the journey, a slow
reveal, adding depth with each addition. I began to grasp that it was the
subtle differences between the images, which intrigued me, rather than the
single images in isolation. It was like a compound eye view of time and travel
and memory. Each image made up of many images and yet of almost the same view,
bar ten paces or so, the journey providing the transition of time and place,
and the metaphor of memory.

That transition is most easily appreciated when viewed as a slideshow, please do have a look.

The huge irony here of course is that
having conceived of the idea as a way of returning to film, I have happened
upon an idea that I strongly suspect can only be achieved digitally because of
the sheer numbers of images involved. Far too many for double exposures I
imagine, not to mention far too expensive if I use single exposures!

The title, incidentally, comes from a
Robert Louis Stevenson poem, it's not a direct inspiration (I don't much care
for it if I'm honest) but Stevenson’s Songs
of Travel shares a plodding, ambulatory metre. It tries to capture a sense
of movement in the structure of the poetry. There are obvious similarities with
the idea I'm trying to convey within the structure of my images.

Since starting my mind has been
ablaze with ideas - the notebook finds its true use - only lacking the time and
energy to pursue them. This remains a creative, rather than scientific experiment, so who knows where it will take us? And now the weather has closed in on my only free day
this week. I can only imagine what I could be creating, what journeys I could
be undertaking. But it does mean I can finally put my thoughts in writing.

Friday, 20 July 2012

Songs of Travel is a new project in the making, it was conceived as a project specifically for film photography, rather than digital, something that would utilise films' serendipitous nature in double exposures. The idea is to celebrate the joys of walking aimlessly along our myriad footpaths, the title comes from a Robert Louis Stephenson poem that was adapted musically by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Unlike my Skirrid Hill project it isn't directly influenced by the words or the music (if I'm honest I dislike both) but I have taken the idea of an almost plodding rhythmic romanticism that infused the text and musical sequence, it is after all a eulogy to an almost mystical experience rather than a translation into pictures.

I haven't used film for nigh on 20 years and before the day I'd made the images below I hadn't been out for any landscape photography for three whole months, I just knew I'd be a bit rusty, so like a coward I just took the digital and experimented, as a way of piecing together my somewhat fragmented ideas and expectation. I'm starting to get a clearer idea of what I want now, so may be ready to actually commit some images to emulsion. But the freedom of playing around in digital has helped frame the finished look more in a way that I think will alter my approach in the use of film.

What I found in the digital edit was a combination of black and white and colour (digital layers rather than double exposure) had a dramatic effect. The ghostlike black and white seemed entirely in keeping with the metaphorical past, the sensory retreat of a long walk and yet the colours, even if subdued stand out like flashes in a dream or memory. Footpaths, like all long journeys are remembered piecemeal, certain aspects come to predominate while others shrink into the background. It is this memory like effect that I'm seeking to replicate, something transient, where one image in the mind sparks or leads strangely into another. It's something that is honestly quite difficult to put into words which I suppose is where the images come to find a purpose.

So instead of a traditional film double exposure I am considering a mixed media approach (sorry!) of digitally combining a black and white film image with a colour film image. This allows greater control over which image to combine with which and the relative density of the layers. I guess I'm still too driven by my digital workflow to see any other way. Although I'll admit it lacks the serendipity of a direct film double exposure, you'll have to allow me my 'breaking in' period with film.